Been playing around with this simple song The One Moment by OK Go. Fun, poppy song and my daughter loves the video, so I want to guitar it up.
Pretty straightforward. The song is in G.
G - C - Em - C and then G - C - D - C
That all makes sense to me. I-IV-vi-IV and then I-IV-V-IV. But then towards the end of the verse, this Cm shows up where that second C is. So I toss that into the strumming, and damn if it doesn’t want make peace with that G. But…that Cm isn’t a part of the key of G at all.
And so I start sorting thru what I know: G here is the tonic, and:
the 7 (subtonic) wants to resolve muchly back to the tonic, but this Cm isn’t a 7.
the 2…the supertonic (super is Latin for above) also wants to wander back to its tonic friend, but this Cm isn’t that either. So…what the heck?
So some online research and, I just discovered the "minor 4th". Not part of G scale. But taking the G scale, getting the 4th (C chord in this case) and making it a minor. Damn it sounds wonderful.
More research and I discover that I'm borrowing from the parallel key.
So yeah. I keep seeing people say things like theory isn't rules, but more like a way to communicate. Borrowing a chord seems like a perfect example of this.
TLDR: Organic lesson happens to me about borrowing a chord.
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